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PANORAMA
"JEFFREY ARCHER: A Life of Lies"
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 19:07:01
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MICHAEL CRICK: Gaoled for four years for perjury, but that's only a small fraction of his total
dishonesty. Tonight we expose the lies and crimes of Jeffrey Archer.
MICHAEL STACPOOLE: He paid me £40,000 to keep my mouth shut.
DORRETT DOUGLAS: He gave me £50 - stripped off and we did the deed.
ARCHER [Tape Recording] What I'm saying is, if a friend of mine helped you.....
COGHLAN: A friend of yours?
ARCHER: Helped you financially to go abroad again, would that interest you?
Starring:
The Call Girls
The Mistresses
The False Alibis
The Fixers
The Tory Patrons
The Reporter
CRICK: One of the great fascinations of following Jeffrey Archer's career, as I have for almost a decade
now, has been disentangling the fact from his fiction. Take his book "First Among Equals" chapter 6: "The
Girl looked up and down the street before strolling over to the car".
DORRETT DOUGLAS: I went to the car and I presume I said the usual - are you looking for some
company?
CRICK: [Reading from book] "Looking for business? It's £10 at my place."
DOUGLAS: The answer was yes but it was at his place.
CRICK: [Reading from book] "Mandy put her hand out and waited. Ah, yes, of course said Raymond,
taking out his wallet."
DORRETT DOUGLAS
Former Prostitute
He was no stranger to the procedures of you pay your money first and the condoms and we just do this and
then it's "thank you, bye, have a nice life".
CRICK: This is the passageway in Mayfair where another prostitute, Monica Coghlan - who was killed in a
car crash at the end of April - said that late one night in 1986 Jeffrey Archer agreed to pay her £50 for sex.
Archer denied that, sued and famously won half a million pounds in damages. But severe doubts about how
he won that case led, 14 years on, to his dramatic appearance in the dock at the Old Bailey.
'The Accused' - by Jeffrey Archer
SHERWIN: There never was a relationship, Mr Cursley.
CURSLEY: I shall return the proof of that relationship later Mr Sherwin.
SHERWIN: And I shall continue to deny it.
CURSLEY: I'll look forward to that.
CRICK: Only eight months before his real life trial Archer teased the world by writing and performing a
courtroom drama about a man on trial at the Old Bailey. Like the case which ended today the accused
involved perjury allegations, a mistress and disputes about when he did what.
SHERWIN: Miss Mitchell seems to think I can be in two places at once.
CRICK: Actor, writer, politician, he's truly lived several lives at once. It's only two years since the accused
trod the seaside stage with top notch backing.
Conservative Party Conference 1999
I am supported by Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister, I am supported by John Major, the former
Prime Minister and I am supported by William Hague, the next Prime Minister. (Cheers and applause)
CRICK: Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in London in 1940, the son of two active Tories. His father,
William, once a councillor, faced his own Old Bailey trial for fraud but escaped justice by fleeing abroad.
He was later gaoled in America, though, for embezzling charity funds. His mother Lola, who died last
week, was a councillor in Weston Super Mare and frequently wrote about her young son, nicknamed
Tuppence, in her column in the local paper. Jeffrey told chums he'd be Prime Minister one day but left
school with just three O-levels and no clear direction. Four months in the Metropolitan Police and a year in
the Army led nowhere before he blossomed as a P.E. master.
GYLES BRANDRETH
Former pupil
I went to a prep school in Kent called Betteshanger and the Headmaster was very excited when he reported
to us that he had discovered this brilliant young man, a young teacher at a local minor public school, Dover
College, called Jeffrey Archer who, in the words of my Headmaster was the best athletics coach he had ever
come across in half a century of teaching.
CRICK: His ideas, boundless energy and brazen dishonesty flourished at Oxford. He got in by lying he'd
already got an American degree. In three years there he married Mary, a clever chemistry student, and won
blues for running as one of Britain's top sprinters.
BBC TELEVISION OUTSIDE BROADCAST BRING YOU - GRANDSTAND
CRICK: Oxford versus Cambridge, White City 1964.
BROADCASTER: They've switched, I think Medcott's on the outside and Archer on the... Yes, Archer
caused the break and.....
CRICK: But he often risked disqualification by jumping the gun.
BROADCASTER: And again it is Archer I think who caused it. Now, is he going to be warned again, or
even pulled out? It looks as... he's out.
CRICK: But no, he got another chance.
BROADCASTER: This time they're... oh, another false one and who's caused it? Well certainly Archer
ran before the gun there.
CRICK: They forgave him again. The story of his life. The student Archer also caused disquiet while
fundraising for Oxfam. Having tricked the Beatles into helping raise half a million pounds he visited the
White House to get President Johnson to sign some records for auction. But Oxfam officials were worried.
1965, half way through his time at Oxford, Archer went back to Weston-Super-Mare and made a substantial
investment in property. People were naturally puzzled as to how, as a student, he could afford to do this.
The deeds show he spent £5,000 on this house not far from the seafront, the equivalent of almost a
£100,000 today, and also bought a smaller house in Oxford. Archer told a friend that it was from
commission he'd been paid on the fundraising he'd done for Oxfam, but former Oxfam officials are adamant
that the charity never paid people commission, it was against their principles. Oxfam held an informal
internal inquiry and at one point appealed for 2000 collecting tins that had gone astray, but they found no
evidence of wrongdoing by Archer. A year after Oxford the Greater London Council fell to a Conservative
landslide.
1967
HAVERING
And I declare Jeffrey Howard Archer duly elected for Havering. (Applause)
CRICK: And he took his first step towards his lifelong political goal. So began one of the most flamboyant
careers of modern politics. But soon came the first whiff of scandal. At County Hall he offered to do
colleagues expense claims for commission. They dubbed him Mr Ten Percent. The then Chairman of the
Conservative Party, Edward Du Cann, wasn't impressed by such behaviour. It was legal but didn't look
good. Du Cann recalls he'd once considered Archer as a party fundraiser.
Sir EDWARD DU CANN
Conservative Party Chairman, 1965-67
I took a very close look at him.
CRICK: And what did you decide?
DU CANN: I decided he was not the sort of person that we should have in the Conservative Party as a
fundraiser.
CRICK: Why not?
DU CANN: Because I didn't think that he would fit. I didn't think his style was right, I didn't think he
approach was right and I thought there were probably better people we could find.
CRICK: But plenty of charities did hire Mr Ten Percent. That's how he met Michael Stacpoole, a PR man
who became a fixer and close pal. Stacpoole, who now lives abroad, would play a key role in his life.
MICHAEL STACPOOL
Former friend
For many years he was my best friend. He was in those days a fundraiser, a professional fundraiser, the first
one, as I understand it, in the United Kingdom, and he raised money for charities and took a percentage
which today is normal but in those days it wasn't.
CRICK: A Downing Street dinner he organised raised £200,000 for the United Nations Association, a
prestigious charity which promotes the UN. But the UNA Chairman, Humphrey Berkley, a former Tory
MP, was shocked to find Archer had made scores of false expense claims. The UNA's then Press Officer
was Colin Harris.
The charity man
COLIN HARRIS
Former UNA Press Officer
It mainly seemed to centre on lunches where he entertained businessmen and the lunch was paid for by his
guest, and he then submitted a claim to UNA for the same bill.
CRICK: Before he died seven years ago Berkley told me of Archer's activities.
HUMPHREY BERKLEY: [Recording] He embezzled from UNA over £1000 on 59 separate occasions. I
said to the Executive Committee; "We can't sack him for embezzling money because, after all, the United
Nations Association is a charity."
CRICK: Yes, and it wouldn't look good.
BERKLEY: "And if your chief fundraiser is embezzling money, it wouldn't look good." I said; "We
simply just don't renew his contract."
DU CANN: Humphrey Berkley was a man I much liked and I was friendly with. I don't think that
everybody in the Conservative Party liked him but I trusted him. He had judgement and he told me that he
regarded Jeffrey Archer, I'm sorry to say, as being less than honourable, and I recommended him to talk to
my successor as Chairman of the Conservative Party and this I believe that he did.
ARCHER: [Campaigning] Good afternoon. Jeffrey Archer, your Conservative candidate. Nice to meet
you. Good afternoon.
CRICK: The party hierarchy ignored the warnings, not for the last time, and Archer was picked for a safe
seat. He charmed Tories in rural Louth in Lincolnshire with exaggerated claims to have grown up on a
farm. But Humphrey Berkley wouldn't give up and passed details of Archers expense fiddles to the
newspapers. The candidate only quashed the story and so reached the Commons by suing Berkley for libel,
but ultimately he had to back down and pay both his and Berkley's legal costs - £35,000. it was a huge sum,
ten times his then salary as an MP. The Barkley case was the most public indication yet of Archer's
dishonesty. An early example of the bullying methods he'd often use in the years ahead to gag his critics.
But in the early 1970s for the whiz kid MP with the cherished number plates (ANY 1) and who made out he
was a millionaire, anything seemed possible. He desperately wanted, though, not to be anyone but
someone.
ARCHER: I don't pretend that I'm not ambitious. I think it would be foolish to arrive in the House of
Commons at the age of 29 and say all I want to do for the rest of my life is sit on the back benches.
CRICK: Archer's second great crisis ensured there was no chance of even that. Stupidly, as he later
admitted, he invested £400,000 of borrowed money in a Canadian company that turned out to be fraudulent.
Fearing bankruptcy he gave up his seat in Parliament and took to writing. Friends were flabbergasted that a
man who could barely compose a letter should produce a string of worldwide bestsellers. Before long his
debts were wiped out and he could now genuinely call himself a millionaire thanks to the famous archer
talent for telling stories.
ARCHER: Well it was more out of necessary than anything else because when I left the House of
Commons, as I say, with debts of 427,727, and I looked for a job, people don't automatically consider you're
the obvious choice as their next financial director.
CRICK: His yarn spinning had become money spinning.
ARCHER: When I'd handed it in and they were getting it ready, I was out looking for a real job. It never
crossed my mind that people would actually pay you for telling stories. I mean I'd loved telling yarns since
I was a boy m'dears, no'ing new in that.
CRICK: Yet it was a painstaking process. He spent weeks closeted with editors, chewing the text almost
line by line as each book went through endless drafts. He'd found the money and fame he craved. Archer's
struggle back from near ruin epitomised 80s Thatcherism and enabled his return to politics as a minor hero.
On constituency tours he'd rouse the faithful in a way few ministers could match with top thumping
speeches.... or the same speech every time.
ARCHER: We need the help of every one of you to ensure this great victory. I pledge myself to that cause.
I ask you to join me. Thank you. (Applause)
CRICK: Archer invested his millions in art and property such as Rupert Brooks former home, the old
vicarage in Grantchester near Cambridge. Instead of bank overdrafts he now boasted handsome balances.
MARY ARCHER: I've got four bank accounts, you've got three. (laughing)
CRICK: One of Jeffrey's accounts was with the Midland Bank Trust on the island of Jersey beyond the
reach of the British tax authorities. I found it was part of an elaborate scheme to help him illegally to evade
paying tens of thousands of pounds in income tax.
Reconstruction
Michael Stacpoole says that in the early 1980s Archer paid him to fly regularly to Jersey to collect, in wads
of cash, the interest on the novelist's account which he says held a million pounds, and a bank source has
corroborated the essentials of Stacpoole's story.
STACPOOLE: Every month I would go over with my overcoat which I'd had special pockets put in, and
dropped in fifty pound notes or twenty pound notes, whatever it was, and brought them back every month.
CRICK: And how much money do you think you brought back from Jersey?
MICHAEL STACPOOLE
Former friend
Well it was, I suppose, about a year so.. I don't know.. about £150,000 I suppose, probably more, probably
more.
Reconstruction
CRICK: After Stacpoole had collected Archer's cash the novelist allowed him to enjoy a lavish lobster
lunch in a nearby restaurant. There's nothing illegal in an offshore bank account in itself, but any money
brought back to the UK must be declared to the taxman. And why was he sending you to Jersey to collect
this cash? Why couldn't he just get the bank to transfer the money?
STACPOOLE: Well I suppose he could have done, but having said that, somebody from the Inland
Revenue might ask questions.
CRICK: So you think it was a tax fiddle.
STACPOOLE: I'm absolutely sure it was a tax fiddle.
CRICK: Had it been exposed, Archer's Jersey operation would have wrecked any chance of a political job
from Margaret Thatcher. It would have been a huge embarrassment at a time Archer would do almost
anything to proclaim the Tory cause.
BBC Breakfast Time 1985#
GIRL: Hello, I'm Cinders. Who are you? Robin Hood?
ARCHER: No, just another archer, I'm touring the forest marginals, making sure that our gang stays in
power.
GIRL: But why are you firing arrows at balloons?
ARCHER: I'm trying to bring down inflation.
CRICK: Meanwhile, cupid's arrow had snared him a mistress, Andrina - or Andy - Colquhoun. She was a
big political risk at a time when Cecil Parkinson had just resigned from the Cabinet for making his secretary
pregnant. But the novelist found perfect cover in his overseas writing trips where he'd take daily strolls
along exotic beaches. A documentary team which filmed him in the Bahamas where he tool Colquhoun
along too, say the couple never hid they were lovers. In a routine which has barely changed since he'd
spend weeks in each secluded spot.
ARCHER: I like to get away - no phones, no human beings. I take a secretary and a cook and just work
from 6 o'clock in the morning till 8; 10 o'clock until 12; from 2 o'clock until 4; from 6 o'clock until 8 in the
evening; four sections a day. I did that for forty-one days and I have a first draft.
CRICK: Michael Stacpool and his then wife visited Archer when he wrote 'The Prodigal Daughter' in
Majorca and found Colquhoun staying there too.
STACPOOLE: He and Andrina shared one bedroom and my wife and I shared the other bedroom. So I'm
presuming that.. you know.. you shared a bedroom with a girl or an attractive lady, you're not going to be
doing nothing all night.
CRICK: Colquhoun, a former professional photographer, officially became Archer's personal assistant. A
one time deb from a wealthy family, her past included several glamorous men.
The diarist
And even in London, say people who observed them, their affair was no great secret.
RICHARD COMPTON MILLER
Former friend
Well Andy used to go out with him and go to art galleries together and they used to be seen at parties
together and Jeffrey didn't seem to mind, the fact that he was married and people would put two and two
together. Jeffrey's always had this arrogance that he can get away with anything, and I think she expected
him to marry her and of course Jeffrey, as we know, with other girlfriends, you know.. promises one thing
and does another.
CRICK: How much did Mary know about this affair?
STACPOOL: Well, she would have been extremely stupid if she hadn't of known. I mean it was well
publicised, it was well known in London and, okay, Mary didn't often come to London and we had the most
terrible performances when she did come because all Andrina's photographs had to be removed....
CRICK: From Archer's flat?
STACPOOLE: ... from Archer's flat and Mary's had to be put on.
Reconstruction
CRICK: With Mary in Grantchester Andrina Colquhoun was effectively his London wife. Michael
Stacpoole recalls going with Archer to Hatton Garden one Christmas when the novelist ordered an almost
identical set of jewellery to one he'd bought Mary.
So he was giving the same Christmas presents to Mary and Andrina.
STACPOOLE: And Andrina, but a small difference in the size of the stones - let's put it that way.
CRICK: And Andrina got the bigger....
STACPOOLE: Got the larger one, yes.
CRICK: But a wife and a mistress weren't enough to satisfy Jeffrey Archer's sexual appetite it seems.
Michael Stacpoole vividly recollects at least two occasions when the novelist also concerted with
prostitutes.
STACPOOLE: We went to a club in Goodge Street and he looked round the room, saw this coloured lady.
He gave her a fifty pound note, they got into his car and off they went and I went home. And the following
day when I phoned him and I asked him if he'd enjoyed himself he said yes, it had been a great night.
CRICK: Stories began appearing in gossip columns hinting the Archer marriage wasn't totally solid.
During the recent Old Bailey trial Mary said she'd learnt about the affair with Adrina Colquhoun from one
such item in 1985 and confronted Jeffrey. Yet in a TV interview two years later she made out the stories
weren't true when asked how important she saw sexual fidelity.
MARY ARCHER: It's moderately important.. I mean it depends what you mean by fidelity. I think loyalty
is important. If you mean strict sexual fidelity, it doesn't rank that terribly high on my scale of the
importance of things in a quite objective sense.
JEFFREY ARCHER: Probably the same, though loyalty is everything, I agree. I think loyalty and
generosity are the two gifts of the most importance that you bring to a marriage.
Q: But how did you feel, Mary, when the gossip columns suggest that Jeffrey was having an affair?
MARY: I felt angry. I was angry for quite a long time. I said it before, I cannot see the point of gossip
columns. I cannot see what they add to our lives. They're wrong.. they're wrong usually and I think they
were wrong in this instance.
CRICK: Despite the gossip, in 1985 Archer was made deputy to a less than thrilled Norman Tebbit, the
Tory Chairman. He'd finally got a political job again, but with one condition.
Who among leading Conservatives knew about Archer's infidelities?
MICHAEL STACPOOLE
Former friend
Well certainly the Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher did because one of the prerequisites of his appointment as
Deputy Chairman was that he would have to stop seeing Andrina, that was.. you know.. absolutely laid
down, black and white "You finish with Andrina".
CRICK: How do you know that?
STACPOOLE: Because Jeffrey told me that and in fact that did happen except that he saw Andrina on
Sunday nights.
CRICK: So he carried on seeing her but a bit more surreptitiously.
STACPOOLE: Exactly.
CRICK: At Central Office Archer was soon confined to a back room role after several gaps. His PA was
Angie Peppiat, Chief witness in the recent trial.
ARCHER: [Dictating] This will be for discussing with the Chairman and a memo to the Prime Minister. "I
am getting far more questions on education on a daily basis than I've had before...."
CRICK: After constituency tours he'd report back to the PM.
ARCHER: [Dictating] Law and order is still the number one topic.
GYLES BRANDRETH
Conservative MP, 1992-97
The reason that he was a friend of Mrs Thatcher is that I think she liked somebody who was young, eager,
energetic, an admirer and an enthusiast. I imagine to Mrs Thatcher he was like a wonderful puppy dog
jumping up and down enthusiastically, rallying to her cause and saying "Well done! Battling Maggie,
Prime Minister we salute you."
CRICK: But typical Archer, he couldn't resist bragging how influential he was at No.10.
ARCHER: Often the Prime Minister says "Oh yes, I know about that" or "Yes, I know about that." Just
occasionally she will say "Ah, that's interesting" and follow it up because she doesn't like to just hear, she
wants to know what they said afterwards and where it goes. She's very demanding in that way.
Q: What, for example, has she followed up in the time of your Deputy Chairmanship?
ARCHER: Well in round the trips it's... it's a very interesting question because I can't answer it direct
without giving two secrets away. I know that two things have happened. I couldn't prove that I personally
made them happen, but perhaps tipped the extra inch made her say "Yes, we should do that". There's one in
the pipeline at the moment that she'd taken very seriously and looking into herself.
CRICK: Yet privately as he braved the buffet food, Archer still harboured his schoolboy aim to become
PM himself, even though he wasn't even an MP. Michael Stacpoole, with whom he discussed it, says he
even planned to challenge Mrs Thatcher if she lost the next election.
STACPOOLE: We thought Thatcher would lose and then we were going to make Jeffrey stand for Leader
of the Tory Party.
CRICK: And he thought he would then.. what.. topple Thatcher?
STACPOOLE: He would topple Thatcher.
CRICK: Archer's third crisis wrecked such plans. Monica Coghlan, a prostitute, told the News of The
World Archer had paid her for sex. Coghlan had already identified him from a photo. Then happened one
day to watch Breakfast TV.
TV-am September 1986
LIZZIE WEBB: Let's have some music. Jeffrey, we'll start by shaking out the shoulders. Did you sleep
well?
ARCHER: Yes thank you.
LIZZIE: Trust you slept well too. (laughing) Shake out the arms. It's very good if you've had nightmares.
CRICK: See Archer perform with Lizzie Webb convinced Monica Coghlan this was the man with whom
she'd enjoyed more intimate exertions. And the News of The World taped Archer on the telephone
offering Coghlan cash to flee overseas.
ARCHER: [Recording] Do you have somewhere to go abroad?
COGHLAN: I could go back to Tunisia.
ARCHER: Would you be safe there?
COGHLAN: Yes.
ARCHER: And happy there?
COGHLAN: Yes.
ARCHER: Well how much money would that take?
CRICK: Archer famously told Coghlan to go to Victoria Station the following morning.
ARCHER: [Recording] The money will be in the package. It will be delivered to you at 11 o'clock at
platform number 3 and you will be in a green leather suit.
COGHLAN: Tomorrow morning.
ARCHER: Tomorrow morning, and you will go abroad as quickly as you can.
COGHLAN: Okay.
ARCHER: And you'll phone me from abroad.
CRICK: I've discovered that Conservative Central Office knew of Monica Coghlan's claims five weeks
before the News of The World published them.
The 'agony aunt'
And then one night the Party Vice Chairman found Archer's assistant in distress.
Baroness NICHOLSON
Conservative Party Vice-Chairman, 1983-87
So I asked him what the problem was that evening and he told me that the boss, Jeffrey Archer, had told
him to go with some money to a railway station and to hand the money over to a prostitute, and I told him
not to be so silly, not to do it. I was shocked that a youngster should be told to do such a thing.
CRICK: That youngster was David Faber, later a Tory MP though he denies Nicholson's story. And at
Victoria it was Michael Stacpoole, not Faber, who was caught by the tabloid offering Coghlan a packet said
to contain £2000.
So how thick was the bundle of fifty pound notes in that envelope?
MICHAEL STACPOOLE
Former friend
It was about that thick I suppose. About an inch thick.
CRICK: So how did it compare say... this one? (handing over wad of notes)
STACPOOLE: Yes, I would think... yes, that would be a very good amount of money, yeah.
CRICK: It's considerably more than £2000, the figure that was said at the time.
STACPOOLE: Yeah, I mean there's no question it was much more than £2000.
CRICK: What would your guess be?
STACPOOLE: I would have said it was much closer to £10,000 than to £2000.
CRICK: Archer resigned for a second time and sued The Star newspaper which had gone much further
than The News of The World in its allegations about him and Coghlan.
1987
[News] Today the court was reminded of the background of Jeffrey and Mary....
[News] Caulfield told the jury they were trying one of the biggest libel actions this century.
CRICK: Throughout the three week libel trial Mary dutifully accompanied her husband to court every day.
Reconstruction
Archer's tactic wasn't just to argue he'd never met Coghlan but to convince the jury he was happily married.
His case was helped when Mary went into the witness box to say she was dumbfounded at the idea of him
with a prostitute.
MARY ARCHER: The thought of my husband consorting with a prostitute is preposterous. Anyone who
knows him well knows that far from Jeffrey accosting prostitutes, if one accosted him he would run several
miles in the opposite direction very fast. They would terrify him.
CRICK: Why would Jeffrey need a prostitute, suggested the Judge, Bernard Caulfield, much taken by
Mary. His summing up went down in legal, political and satirical history.
JUDGE CAULFIELD: Remember Mary Archer in the witness box. Your vision of her probably will never
disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial,
radiance? What is she like in physical features, in presentation, in appearance?
CRICK: The jury backed Archer's story and rejected Monica Coghlan's account.
9 O'CLOCK NEWS
Half a million pounds for Jeffrey Archer. A jury decides he didn't have sex with a prostitute.
MICHAEL CRICK
That verdict was quite simply a travesty of justice. Archer tried to fix that trial in at least four ways, and
we've now learnt a very different story to the one he gave the '87 jury.
Had it been told in court I've no doubt Jeffrey Archer would have lost. But we now know that the novelist
paid one friend many thousands of pounds to keep his mouth shut. He procured false alibis from at least
two other friends and asked several more people to lie but they refused. What's striking isn't just the scale
of the deceit and the numbers involved but the breathtaking confidence with which Archer thought he could
fix the trial and not get caught. The most powerful witness to Archer's plot was Angie Peppiat, his then PA
whose evidence and the papers she kept convicted him today.
Reconstruction
Seven years ago Michael Stacpoole invited Peppiat to lunch at his London flat where, unknown to her, a
journalist secretly taped their conversation. Having once had great faith in British justice, Peppiat said she'd
become totally disillusioned by what she'd seen working at Archer's side.
ANGIE PEPPIAT: [Recording] It wasn't until I had been through that trial with Jeffrey that I understood
how you could manipulate justice to a degree that's almost incredible. Jeffrey was as guilty as **** hell.
As far as I'm concerned, justice doesn't exist any more because you can buy it, you can buy it.
Fix - 1
CRICK: In fix number one the main way Archer bought justice was through Terence Baker, his TV agent,
who gave his crucial alibi for the '87 trial. Without it Archer would have been sunk.
Reconstruction
Monica Coghlan's story was that Archer picked her up in Shepherd Market in Mayfair in the early hours of
the morning. They then went back to her hotel in Victoria where the novelist paid her £70 for sex.
Contradicting that, Terence Baker swore on oath in support of Jeffrey Archer's story that the two men were
in fact chatting together in the Caprice Restaurant at that time. Baker said the novelist then gave him a lift
back in his Jaguar to his home in South London. It now looks highly likely Coghlan told the truth, and even
more certain that Baker lied to save his friend for which he was rewarded with more negotiating rights to
Archer's books.
The confidantes
I've found at least six of his associates, including two ITV executives, who recall Baker later admitting he
hadn't been truthful in court.
KEITH RICHARDSON
Controller of Drama, Yorkshire TV
Terence sort of confessed that he may not have told the truth at the trial.
NICK ELLIOTT
Controller of Drama, ITV
He said "Well I gave evidence that showed that Jeffrey couldn't have been seeing Monica Coghlan when it
was said.. at the time when it was said he was there." So I said "Oh, so wasn't it true that Jeffrey went into
Mayfair to see Monica Coghlan?" And he said "Well I don't know actually. My evidence wasn't quite true.
I concocted it to protect Jeffrey."
CRICK: Did he give you any detail of how he hadn't told the truth?
RICHARDSON: Not really, he just sort of said "Well look, I said I was with him on an evening when in
fact I wasn't with him." And I said "Oh, why would you do that?" And he said "Well, if you had the rights
to his books, wouldn't you?"
CRICK: When Terence Baker suddenly died of a heart attack in 1991 the novelist was highly relieved.
According to Angie Peppiat at the secretly taped lunch with Michael Stacpoole.
ANGIE PEPPIAT: [Recording] The one person that Jeffrey always really worried about.... what was that
guy called? The moment he died Jeffrey felt reasonably safe.
FIX - 2
CRICK: The second great risk was film producer Ted Francis, Archer's co-defendant in the recent trial
whom he also asked for a false alibi. Francis said he didn't know this alibi was for the libel trial and
thought it was to cover for Archer's affair with Colquhoun.
FIX - 3
Reconstruction
CRICK: But the most breathtaking gamble of all - Fix 3 - was the way Archer concealed the false Baker
alibi by forging a new diary. He knew his real diary might expose his alibi as bogus and so hid that from
the court. Instead Archer wrote out a select list of engagements and obtained a new blank diary. He then
gave both of them to Angie Peppiat and told her to copy out the list in the new diary, though she only had to
fill in eight successive days. It was an astonishing trick. Everyone involved in the 1987 trial accepted the
diary was genuine, partly because the sides of it were bound up in such a way that it was difficult to notice
the rest of the book was empty. But Angie Peppiat kept the crucial evidence for 12 years, including
Archer's handwritten notes of the entries he'd told her to write. And, most damning of all, the original A5
diary which the novelist had concealed from the libel jury.
Fix - 4
CRICK: Archer's fourth big fix to buy justice was to exile abroad an old friend. He was terrified Michael
Stacpoole was talking too much and paid him to shut up.
MICHAEL STACPOOLE
Former friend
I got a call from a somewhat irate Archer and he said "For God's sake don't do any more interviews, don't
tell anybody anything. We're closing ranks" and he said "I think you should go away on holiday." I said
"Well Jeffrey that's very kind of you but.. you know.. small matter of how are we going to pay for this
holiday?" And he said "Well go down to my flat and you will be given some money." In effect I was given
£2000 and I went to Paris.
CRICK: And you stayed in Paris for.. what, eight months?
STACPOOLE: Eight months in Paris. That was.. basically the deal was that I would stay in Paris and not
come back.
Reconstruction
CRICK: Michael Stacpoole says he got £24,000 in all from Archer while in France, and the hush payments
continued for well over a year when he returned to England after the trial.
The cash counter
Stacpoole's former girlfriend recalls accompanying him to the novelist's flat to collect the monthly cash.
VIVIAN PRIDAY
Michael Would get up early, get himself very smartly dressed, a shirt, tie, suit, looking immaculate, and
we'd arrive at Jeffrey's flat at about one minute to twelve because Jeffrey and Michael were very punctual.
At about eight minutes past twelve Michael would come down with the envelope in hand and normally pass
it to me in the car. I would count it and it was always a thousand pounds, which was very nice, and we'd go
off and have lunch.
STACPOOLE: He paid me a thousand pounds a month for sixteen months to make up the total of £40,000.
But we had had an agreement prior to the court case that he would in fact pay me 50% of any damages that
he might receive. So he might pay me nothing if he lost, on the other hand, if he made a million I was due
half a million.
CRICK: The question is, why Archer wanted Stacpoole out of the country. The reason became clear when
the novelist asked his friend to swear an affidavit which wasn't true. Stacpoole refused.
STACPOOLE: I was asked during.. before the trial to sign an affidavit whereby I would say that I did not
know of any prostitute or female that Jeffrey had been with. My lawyer advised me not to because that
would be perjury and so I didn't do it.
CRICK: You wouldn't have been telling the truth.
STACPOOLE: I would not be telling the truth, no.
Reconstruction
CRICK: Remarkably The Star newspaper itself had evidence of Archer and a prostitute. A woman came
forward during the 1987 trial to say the novelist paid her for sex, directly contradicting Archer's claim on
oath never to have associated with prostitutes.
The call girl
CRICK: Dorrett Douglas says one summer night in 1985 Archer took her back to his flat and they had sex
on his sofa.
DORRETT DOUGLAS
Former prostitute
In the apartment, after he'd given me a glass of champagne and he'd gone away to change, and he came back
and I said as most working girls will tell you, money first, and he gave me a fifty pound note, stripped off
and we did the deed.
CRICK: How did Jeffrey Archer come across to you as a person?
DOUGLAS: A very nice man, normal guy - there was nothing strange about him at all except he had
money - clean, polite, courteous. What can I say?
CRICK: In those days Archer was frequently reported as living in the penthouse. In fact he lived the floor
below the penthouse, and Douglas' evidence is more compelling for reflecting that. The rows of books
intrigued her, so did several silver cigarette boxes, modelled on Archer paperbacks, thank you gifts from his
publishers.
DOUGLAS: I asked.. you know.. what are you doing with these cigarette cases by Jeffrey Archer, and he
said he's storing these things for Jeffrey Archer who lived upstairs. There was also quite a number of books
of the same titles in the apartment and I asked again, why are you having so many books of the same author,
of the same story, and he said I'm storing them for Jeffrey Archer who lives upstairs.
Reconstruction
CRICK: Douglas only heard about the libel case once it started and friends urged her to approach The Star
and offer them evidence.
DOUGLAS: He should never have slated Monica. He should have been an honest man, I've been caught,
yes I did it. Who would have killed him for it? No one.
Reconstruction
CRICK: After the success of Archer's decision to put Mary on the witness stand The Star's lawyers felt it
was too risky to spring Douglas as a late surprise, though they thought she was telling the truth. They also
avoided other damaging details of Archer's past, fearing that besmirching him more might aggravate the
likely damages.
So when Mary Archer said in the trial that they had a happy marriage, that was misleading, to put it mildly.
MICHAEL STACPOOLE
Former friend
Maybe that's the way.. that's what she considers to be a happy marriage. It wouldn't be for the normal
person but maybe for her it is. There are some couples that don't mind what the other one does. Maybe the
Archers are one of those people, but for me, you're pushing your luck.
CRICK: Now in the 1987 libel trial, Jeffrey Archer's defence was essentially that he was happily married to
Mary and therefore would never set eyes on another woman.
RICHARD COMPTON MILLER
Former friend
I think most people who know Jeffrey did a little laugh because how could Jeffrey.. I mean whether it was
true or not I don't know but.. you know.. Jeffrey is famous for being unfaithful.
Reconstruction
CRICK: Nor was it a secret in Conservative circles. Angie Peppiat who once had good links with the party
said at the secretly recorded lunch that several top Tories knew the '87 trial was a travesty.
ANGIE PEPPIAT: [Recording] I mean, there are still three people, the grey men behind the scenes in
Government, who still know how guilty he is. We won't mention names now but they well and truly know
how guilty he still is. Now, they will go on protecting because they're not protecting him; they're basically
protecting the Conservative Party.
CRICK: Some leading Tories may have suspected his libel victory was a fraud but they did nothing once
Archer had collected his half million pounds from The Star to stop him throwing himself back into work for
the Conservative Party. He was taking a huge risk, of course, that one day the truth would come out,
especially when so many people had been drawn into the plot. But by now Archer had bounced back so
often in life he began to behave almost as if he were untouchable. Long before John Major replaced
Margaret Thatcher at the crease, Archer had spotted Major's potential. The two cricket fans became friends
and in 1992 the new PM succumbed to the novelist pleadings for a peerage. Major also delighted Archer by
asking him to help Princess Diana when she withdrew from public life after separating from Charles. But
Archer really wanted a proper political job, preferably Party Chairman. Archer's fourth big crisis dashed
those hopes - the Anglia affair of 1994. He made almost £80,000 trading in Anglia TV shares on behalf of
a Kurdish friend - Bruce Sayeeb. Crucially it was at the very time his wife Mary, an Anglia Director, was in
secret takeover talks. Ministers suspected Jeffrey of insider trading, dealing in shares on inside information,
an imprisonable offence.
The minister
CRICK: The Trade Department investigated Archer but eventually ministers decided not to prosecute.
NEIL HAMILTON
Trade Minister, 1992-94
I concluded on the basis of the investigation that there wasn't enough evidence to justify a prosecution, so I
suppose my overall conclusion was that Jeffrey was a chump but not a crook.
[BBC News]
The Conservative Peer, Lord Archer, is cleared of insider share dealing.
1994
ARCHER: I'm delighted to have been exonerated by the DTI and grateful to my many friends, colleagues
and well-wishers for their support during the past three weeks.
CRICK: Now he's often said that the Anglia report exonerated him. Is that true?
HAMILTON: Well that's certainly not true because that isn't the purpose of such reports. The purpose of
the report is to determine whether there is a case for a prosecution, and the fact that you decide not to
prosecute doesn't mean that the person concerned is exonerated any more than if you do decide to prosecute
that in effect that's a conviction. All it means is that there isn't enough evidence to justify taking the matter
further.
CRICK: The inspector's report was never published, but Archer confessed Anglia was a grave error. So
running for London Mayor less than four years later was another big risk given the cemetery of skeletons in
his past and his reluctance to justify Anglia.
1998
REPORTER: Lord Archer, when are you going to explain the Anglia shares affair? Are you going to
explain why you bought those shares for your friend Bruce Sayeeb? Why did you buy the shares? Why
couldn't he buy his own shares?
CRICK: Three days after that refusal by Archer to come clean over Anglia I wrote to William Hague
warning him that if Archer was chosen as the Tories mayoral candidate then further damaging stories would
inevitably come out. I offered to tell Hague everything I knew about Archer, including much of what's
appeared in this programme. Five weeks later my offer was dismissed with a curt reply from one of
Hague's aids. But the Tories always felt deeply indebted to the novelist. When he entertained them cost
was no problem. Margaret Thatcher and John Major frequently enjoy his hospitality and William Hague
too once graced the Grantchester garden. Despite severe doubts, Hague declined to stop Archer, though
he's since said that was a big mistake.
GYLES BRANDRETH
Conservative MP, 1992-97
It's easy to say that wilier birds than William Hague, people like Ken Clarke, even Michael Heseltine, might
have found a way of stopping Archer becoming our Mayoral candidate. But the reason it didn't happen was
first of all because I don't think we took the mayoralty that seriously. Secondly because the qualities that
Jeffrey had seemed suitable for the job, and he created a momentum for himself, and had grass root support.
The troops wanted Jeffrey Archer as their candidate for Mayor and he became unstoppable.
CRICK: Yet once picked as the Tory nominee, Hague gave him a needlessly fulsome endorsement.
1999
HAGUE: This candidate is a candidate of probity and integrity and I'm going to back him to the full.
CRICK: Those who challenged that integrity were bullied in the traditional Archer way. Indeed, when I
through questions outside Central Office I was assaulted by his chauffeur. Later the rattled candidate
complained it was wrong for Newsnight to ask me questions about him.
ARCHER: "Oh hello Mr Crick. What do you think of Jeffrey Archer?" Clip, clip, clip. Oh come on.
Who are you kidding. You wait till I'm Mayor. You'll find out how tough I am.
HOWARDS' WAY
CRICK: But there was a tender side too. Secretly he'd found a new mistress, an actress who'd once played
a minor role in the TV series Howard's Way. It was through Conservative fundraising work that he'd come
to meet Sally Farmiloe. Archer was risking a potential Godsend for the tabloids, and The Star later
obtained compromising pictures, including Farmiloe visiting his flat. She recently sold her story for more
than £100,000.
News of the World video
Hello, I'm Sally Farmiloe. I had an affair with Jeffrey Archer for 3½ years and tomorrow for the first time I
tell my true story in the News of the World.
CRICK: Incredibly and a sign of Archer's recklessness the affair only blossomed once he was under
scrutiny in the race for mayor.
SALLY FARMILOE
It wasn't really until he started his mayoral campaign which I think was about 1998 that he started being in
London more, and then I would see him more often probably at the weekends or whatever. We never went
out as such. I don't think he ever took me out for a meal. We couldn't. I mean it was a secret situation.
RICHARD COMPTON MILLER
Former friend
Sally Farmiloe, like Andy, was an ex-deb and rather older, rather flasher, rather brighter, very intelligent
and very worldly wise and.. you know.. she would like someone like Jeffrey and Jeffrey would go a bundle
on her because she was a very sexy, attractive lady.
The fundraiser
CRICK: Fellow actress Angela Grant also knows Farmiloe through Tory fundraising where she came to
admire Archer's skills as an auctioneer. The two women were running a Conservative ball together when
Farmiloe suddenly vanished.
ANGELA GRANT
Normally Sally and I would.. you know.. get everybody moving and open the ball. Well you know.. I had to
get things going a little bit on my own. I thought where on earth is she? And when she came back I said
"What on earth happened to you?"
COMPTON MILLER: He was at this ball with Sally Farmiloe and in the middle of the ball in Mayfair he
goes down to the car park and they may love on the floor of the car park. This is the time when he's running
for Mayor.
The strategist
CRICK: Yet Archer's campaign team were blissfully unaware of this aspect of his pressing the fless
STEPHAN SHAKESPEARE
Mayoral Campaign Manager, 1997-99
I didn't know about it at the time. I was obviously surprised by it, unpleasantly surprised, but there you are.
It's nothing I knew about and could do anything about.
CRICK: But doesn't it show an extraordinary recklessness that the man knew that there was likely to be all
this press attention, he had this mistress behind the scene and he was running for Mayor of London.
SHAKESPEARE: I think Jeffrey would be the first to admit that there's a reckless side to his nature and
that he's made some pretty serious mistakes. Yes, it's of a parcel with that.
COMPTON MILLER: Jeffrey is brazen, he doesn't care, he doesn't care what people think really. He
thinks he's so powerful, you know, rather like Jonathan Aitken, you know.. these people are so powerful, or
feel they are, that they can get away with things. They've done it all their lives so why can't they go on.. you
know.
CRICK: As the Archer campaign hit the streets, now with Mary's public backing things began stirring
backstage which soon led to his downfall. Several former friends with beans to spill had previously told me
they'd never go public. But with Archer now perilously close to some kind of power they were happy to
talk.
BBC NEWS
1999
Police consider criminal charges against Lord Archer for asking a friend to lie but silence from the man
forced to quit the race for London Mayor.
CRICK: Archer's fifth great crisis was triggered by the surviving false alibi from 1987. Ted Francis, who's
alibi was never needed, was paid by the News of the World to phone Archer to get him to admit his
dishonesty. He'd come nearer than ever to holding high office and this was his hardest fall of all, hurting
those who'd turned so many blind eyes.
Surely if the Party had put its foot down a little bit more firmly in the way that you did when you were
Chairman, it might have avoided many of the Archer troubles of the last 30 years.
Sir EDWARD DU CANN
Conservative Party Chairman, 1965-67
Well Mr Crick that's a sensible judgement I'm afraid, but the truth is that politics involve voluntary
organisations and the leaders of parties have to make bricks out of the straw that's available. Sometimes the
straw is of good quality, sometimes the straw is not of such good quality.
CRICK: Even whilst awaiting his Old Bailey trial, Archer found it difficult to keep on best behaviour.
When his play 'The Accused' flopped in the West End in January, he came out here to South Africa. The
idea was to get working on his next book called 'Serendipity' and he immediately got down to his typical,
highly disciplined daily regime of writing. He came to Monkey Valley, a resort just south of Cape Town
and occupied a secluded cabin, there churning out several thousand words of text a day supposedly without
distraction. But then he was found on one of his early morning walks with a mysterious blond spotted by a
journalist from the Mail on Sunday. At first it was thought his beach companion might be Sally Farmiloe.
It turned out in fact to be yet another mistress called Nicky Kingdon. The reporter overheard the two lovers
later that evening at the local restaurant called 'The Red Herring' funnily enough. Indeed, Archer spoke so
loudly it was impossible not to hear.
BARBARA JONES
Journalist, Mail on Sunday
He leaned towards her and was touching her hand and she was stroking his. It was all fairly.. put you off
your food sort of thing. And he said "Darling, here we are in South Africa, the beach and the sunshine and
nobody knows we're here."
CRICK: He also boasted of his relationships with senior Tories, talking as if he were still a big cheese in
William Hague's Party.
JONES: He said, "We're getting rid of Hague after.. he's a silly man, we're getting rid of him after the
election." Which was breathtaking too since he's been chucked out of the Tory Party himself.
CRICK: And now one can't see him exerting such influence ever again having asked friends for one favour
too many, he stretched his web of deceit beyond breaking point.
MICHAEL STACPOOLE
Former friend
Archer doesn't know what the hell he wants to do. Good luck to him but don't involve everybody else.
How long has he lied for? How many times have people helped this man out. I mean he has lied and lied
and lied.
CRICK: For the world's greatest storyteller time is up on his reputation and this is an Archer tale which
ends with a long sentence.
_________
You can comment on the issues raised in tonight's programme by visiting our website at
bbc.co.uk/panorama
CREDITS
Reporter
Michael Crick
Film Camera
Peter George
Neil Higginson
Chris Marlowe
Steve Moss
Sound Recordists
Steve Hubbard
Paul Keyworth
Tony Pasfield
Dubbing Mixer
Nick Berry
John Rogerson
VT Editors
Rod Hutson
Jaspal Banga
Title Music
Adam Dineen
Paul A. Jackson
Colourist
Nick Adams
Graphic Design
Simon Hunt
Kaye Huddy
Julie Tritton
Production Managers
Yolanda Ayres
Martha Estcourt
Film Research
Eamonn Walsh
Archive
Anglia Television
BBC Television Archive
ITN Achive/Reuters
London News Network
London Weekend Television
Moving Image Communications
Sky News
Production Team
Jill Simpson
Sameena Akbar
Leanne Ward
Tania Simpson
Jessica Kenny
Rosa Rudnicka
Margaret Hounsell
Unit Manager
Maria Ellis
Film Editor
Matthew Sterlini
Assistant Producer
Nicole Kleeman
Producer
Terry Tyldesley
Deputy Editors
Karen O'Connor
Andrew Bell
Editor
Mike Robinson
2
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Transcribed by 1-Stop Express Services, London W2 1JG Tel: 020 7724 7953 E-mail 1-stop@msn.com